We’ve Hit a Snag

I can ask my kids to pick up their dirty clothes and put them in the laundry basket and they can’t seem to grasp the concept I’m trying to convey. They look confused. They frown. The words seem foreign to them.

Other times they seem to glean too much meaning from my instructions.

“That’s disgusting,” I snapped at Miss6.

Our daughter seemed taken aback by the unexpected criticism.

“What is?” she attempted to ask through a mouthful of dripping sausage.

“You don’t eat sausages and mash with your hands,” I said.

I eyeballed Tracey while pointing my a flick of my head at our youngest in what I hoped conveyed both ‘can you believe this shit?’ and ‘where were you on this one, Mrs Table Manners?’

Usually it’s Tracey panicking about our kids’ lack of etiquette so I wanted her to know she’d dropped the ball this time.

Lucky I was on hand to sort this out, was the other thing I was gunning for.

“Please,” I said in my Daddy voice where I pronounce each syllable clearly and succinctly so there can be no confusion about my meaning, “put it down.”

Miss6 obediently dropped the sausage she was chewing on – from about a foot above her plate – and gravy splattered across the table.

“Why would you do that?” I demanded as I left the table for a cloth to clean the mess.

Tracey suggested, in a tone which read both ‘don’t start with me’ and ‘nice one, idiot’, it was possibly because I’d told her too.

I suspect my wife enjoys it when I fail.

“Yeah,” said Miss6, taking the cloth and, in much the same way I work with top soil, converting the several lumps of gravy to an even sort of spread, “that was silly of you, Daddy.”

It occurred to me somehow this was now all my fault.

Time to redirect the blame firmly to where it belonged.

“Now this time,” I said, walking the cloth back to the sink for a rinse, “eat your dinner properly. Without your hands.”

Four quick things.

One, at this juncture I was again rather pleased with my parenting.

Two, that didn’t last.

Three, we weren’t done with the cloth.

Four, Tracey got cranky with me for not ‘using my brain’.

Tracey dropped her own knife & fork and the word ‘NOOooooooo…!’ formed in her mouth.

But she was too late.

“Okay, Daddy,” Miss6 chimed happily after briefly glancing down at each hand with a thoughtful frown…

…and face planted into her plate of sausages, mash and gravy.

In other family news, Great-Great-Grandma Lawrence turned 91 this week. Ninety-one! As I explain to my kids, she was around when horse & cart actually meant a horse and a cart.
Today is Book Week – I don’t know how that works. Anyway, we have Toothless, Lulu and Myrtle. And a mess to clean up. 
Toothless, from How To Train a Dragon. Onesies: the go-to for shit-at-craft parents nationwide.
Lulu, of Lulu Bell fame. I say fame but I’ve never heard of her.
Moaning Myrtle, from Harry Potter. This was the most annoying costume of all because Miss11 was determined to get the voice and tone right. Unfortunately, she nailed it.

Miss6 dropped her six books (why six!? I wanted to know) under the car. Tracey decided it was worth a photo even as she was calling out, “Mario isn’t a book, Bruce, it’s a video game character.”
Miss14 with her A- woodwork effort. Tracey has suggested I get her to fit out the bus, since the best mark I ever achieved was a C-.
The new Partridge Family? We already have the bus.
Part of the reason we’ve been so busy around here is Tracey is setting up for studio work. This has included painting walls, fitting blinds, updating camera equipment, sourcing props and buying in a heap of super expensive dresses. Dollcake? Apparently they’re the be all.
We have a house full of subjects, which is good for Tracey. And for us. We’re going to end up with some lovely artwork for the walls.
Friends of ours went to a Jazz festival here in Gympie and won this cute yellow bike, which they promptly gifted to Miss8. She was a little bit chuffed because, “It’s my third favourite colour!”
Some days I think we’re so lucky to be home. I mean, you can’t do this shit in a bus-home and survive.

Raising a family on little more than laughs

This post is not sponsored…

…but if you tap on the very attractive image of me below you’ll see my latest one which is about home safety, so worth a gander

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